Teaching Alexander

This is a picture of my two sons. Christian (left – without the gun; he’s not grouchy honest, just a bad time for a picture.) and Alexander (right – still without the gun). I took this photo in Deadwood SD this summer right after we had watched the shooting of Wild Bill Hickock.

Alexander turned 12 this year and with a rush of pre – teen pride is entering grade seven. Which in our small town means that I am about to become his home room teacher. Alexander and I will be in the same classroom for most of the day. I will be teaching him math, science, language arts and social studies.

This has brought education and planning home to me in a whole new way. Each unit that I’ve been looking at before this school year has begun, I’ve found myself thinking of my own child:

Does he know how to do this? Will he struggle with this?

I think this is natural. We all want the best for our kids and are concerned about them.

As well, this has made me much more aware that EVERY child in my classroom has a parent behind them that wonders the same thing each day as they walk into my classroom. As classroom teachers, we go a long way towards helping kids build their dreams into a life time reality. People not involved with education may believe that we will be “easier” on our own kids if we have the chance. In fact, I can see that I will have to work very hard not to be too tough on him.

We bought Alexander a new Macbook this summer and he and I have been playing with it, setting up software, learning to use it a bit more and making sure he’s ready for his first days in the classroom. I’m both nervous and excited to have him in my classroom. I of course want him to do well and to learn to see the world with ever-more-mature eyes. Should start off the year in a new and interesting way.